A two-wheeled, death-defying tour through a historic jewel
COPENHAGEN— It was me and the bike.
A big, white, ungainly bike, rented from my hotel overlooking the harbour. No problem. Cycling was a passion, once. I can do this again. I am in Copenhagen.
I get on the seat, my feet seek the pedals, and as I wobble forth, people eyeing me warily in case I splatter into them, I realize my feet will never reach the pedals. But it’s not because I am lurching towards the water, where the bike will surely sink and I will bob around mortified. At five-foot-two, I am too short to reach the pedals.
The previous rider was probably a tall Nordic woman with legs up to her armpits, blond hair streaming in a shining curtain behind her as she laughed her way through Copenhagen with friends.
This time the rider is 52 and not at all sure she can ride through the streets of Copenhagen without cracking open her skull.
In addition to being big and heavy, the bike also functions somewhat differently. It has brakes on the pedals and handlebars, which takes some getting used to.
Map in the basket at the front of the bike, the seat ratcheted down so I can reach the pedals — although a friendly resident whom I flagged down to ask for help diagnosed the wobbling issue as, “You are too short for this bike” — I take off in search of Rosenborg Castle.
A few blocks later, the map flies out of my wicker basket, lands in the street and is run over by a car, another car and then a truck, or maybe it is an ambulance, or maybe I am just imagining ambulances so I can feel like this is a city with hospitals and I will be taken to one if I get run over three times, like the map.
Remarkably, the run-over map remains intact and so do I when I dare to retrieve it from across the street, dodging a tour bus.
This is a business trip. I have only a few hours and my itinerary is modest: See a castle, walk up a tower.
I have been a slave to Lonely Planet guidebooks most of my life, but this time I want to wing it and see what happens. I should have done it long ago. (No offence to Lonely Planet. I still love you.)
Not wanting to crash into the café tables outside the restaurants lining the canal, an area known as Nyhavn — a popular tourist haunt, the one you see on postcards — I turn down a side street for brunch inside a quiet café with small tables and white linen tablecloths.
Restaurant Zeleste, at Store Strandstraede 6, specializes in fish and seafood, but on a weekday morning, the Skyr (yogurt) with granola and fruit and avocado with pesto on rye bread hits the spot.
The waiter tells me the building dates back to 1664, when it was owned by a blacksmith.
The blacksmith’s hearth, in a cosy cobbled courtyard, is now a fireplace.
The street was the city’s main street until the new harbour (Nyhavn) was built. The blacksmithing fell off and the building became a brothel catering to sailors and, later, an erotica museum.
On the second floor of Zeleste, framed paintings of naughty cherubs seem to back this story.
I am only back on the bike for less than a minute before I come across a rack of pretty, handmade skirts on sale outside a store called Female Frog, which, like many stores in Copenhagen, is partly below ground level.
Inside, I meet the designer-seamstress-owner, who rounds up a few things for me to try on. The garments fit beautifully, both the ones she makes and the tailored European cotton shirts and cashmere sweaters she imports. Sold.
I am learning to correct for the wobble in the bike and I follow the locals as they cycle confidently through traffic in designated bike lanes, long stretches of which are protected from cars by a small curb. They don’t wear helmets.
I make it to Rosenborg Castle, but cut the visit short. The dead jewels inside the walls can’t compete with the blue skies and sunshine spar- kling across the vast grounds, filled with residents taking advantage of a bank holiday to lounge in the grass among the flowers and trees.
Afterward I cycle aimlessly around the city, itself a historic jewel. Without trying, I bump into the National Gallery of Denmark and then the lush and historical Orsted Park. The lake was once a moat that was part of the city’s defence system, a royal right-of-way.
The adjacent Israel Square is a paved concrete block surrounded by old brick buildings. It works because it is so filled with activity, offering a skateboarding area, basketball hoops and an area for soccer.
A section of stadium seating attracts white-haired Danish toddlers, who climb the broad steps like it is Everest and they are Tenzing and Hillary.
Heading back to the hotel, I take a random right turn, which magically brings me to the foot of Copenhagen’s Round Tower 20 minutes before it closes.
The Round Tower was built in the 17th century as an observatory.
It takes five minutes to walk to the top and the view brings the city into perspective: the short distance between the winter and summer castles, the harbour, the tiled roofs. Life was smaller then.
I begin winding my way back to the hotel through the Stroget, Copenhagen’s pedestrian-only shopping district.
Although the stores are closed, the sun is setting and it is getting cool, it is full of people.
Now friends with the bike, I am reluctant to give it up. I ride past my hotel on the water and to Amalienboug, the current royal palace, a Danish Rococo architecture masterpiece, and the charming St. Alban’s, the only Anglican church in Denmark, built of stone and still used today for services in English
Elated, I call it a day. I wouldn’t recommend that everyone rent a bike in Copenhagen, but if you do, it’s cheaper and probably safer to rent one from one of the many bicycle shops in the city, where you will be matched with something your size.
But I liked the convenience of the hotel bike and, despite my shaky start, it allowed me to see more of the city than I could have on my tired feet.
My skull remained intact at the end of the day. If there is a next time, I will ask for a helmet.
The dead jewels inside Rosenborg Castle can’t compete with the sunshine sparkling across its vast grounds